Fiona Stanley

Fiona Stanley

Professor Fiona Stanley was born in Sydney in 1946 and came to Perth in 1956. She studied medicine at the University of Western Australia and practised in hospitals for two years before going to the United Kingdom and USA for further training in epidemiology (the science of describing and explaining the occurrence of disease in populations), biostatistics and public health.

She is the founding Director of the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research that was established in Perth in 1990. The Institute is multi-disciplinary and researches prevention of major childhood illnesses. It currently has more than 300 employees.

Professor Stanley is also the Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth, a national organisation that was formally constituted in June 2002 with an agenda to improve the health and well-being of young Australians.

She is married to Professor Geoffrey Shellam. They have two daughters.

2003 Australian of the Year, Professor Fiona Stanley is the Founding CEO of the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth (since 2002), the Founding Director of the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research (since 1990); and Professor of the Department of Paediatrics at the University of Western Australia (since 1990).

With a research background in epidemiology, biostatistics and child and public health, Professor Stanley has, over many years, advocated for a collaborative approach between the biomedical, health, and social sciences to enable a better understanding of how genetic, biological, social and economic factors interact to affect the healthy development and wellbeing of children and young people. To that end, she played a key role in the establishment of the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth in 2002. The Alliance is a multi-disciplinary national collaboration of researchers, policy-makers and service providers which aims to integrate relevant knowledge across disciplines and sectors so that more effective programs can be implemented.

As inaugural CEO of the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth, Professor Stanley has advocated for a higher national priority to be afforded to developmental needs of Australia's young and has been acknowledged for her role in the current Federal Government policy initiative of developing a "National Agenda for Early Childhood". With cross-sector cooperation between the Alliance, social science agencies, the humanities and academic institutions, she has also successfully campaigned for the Federal Government's National Research Priorities to be broadened to enable integration of the social science perspective.

As Director of the Institute of Child Health Research, in 1997, Professor Stanley's research group established the WA Maternal and Child Health Research Data Base (MCHRDB), a unique collection of data on births throughout Western Australia. The Data Base documents trends in maternal and child health and the impact of preventive programs (such as folate for spina bifida prevention and preventive maternal and child health in Aboriginal communities).

Professor Stanley's main areas of research are based on analytical studies investigating

  • strategies to enhance health and wellbeing in populations:
  • the causes and prevention of birth defects and major neurological disorders particularly the cerebral palsies;
  • the causes and lifelong consequences of low birth weight and other pre- and postnatal problems;
  • patterns of maternal and child health in Aboriginal and Caucasian populations.